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For all of the problems of liquidating the gold, Yasu is able to turn about five percent of it into cash within a short period of time (less than two years), without drawing significant attention.

Yes, and that suggests she's rather a bit too intelligent to be trying to bribe people with mountains of gold and vague bomb threats, no?

I think fat stacks of cash and secret bank accounts would be a nicer inducement. If she had the foresight to set something like that up, why not just arrange for that with her accomplices? It's a lot easier to buy the adults accepting a role in some scheme if you have a briefcase stuffed with a hundred million Yen and a bank card promising hundreds of millions more.

Granted a bank card by itself is not very convincing, but either cash upfront or some way to verify that the account does have cash in it would be a lot more convincing than a big stack of unconverted gold. If the plan is to murder anyway, the cash is more useful too (steal it from whoever you bought off with it after killing them, take it with you when you leave the island or just blow it all up if you're going that route).

For the fictional narratives, I can see both Yasu and Battler letting logic take a back seat to the cool factor (I mean, cmon, it's HIDDEN NAZI GOLD; they might have well just stamped "MacGuffin" on the tops of the bars).

For Prime, I don't think Yasu's plan, whatever it was, made it to the stage of selecting and recruiting accomplices.

Honestly I also think that Yasu's plan worked so well because it was a tale.

Natsuhi's obedience in Ep 5 seems already pretty forced and, at least, she has some excuses (she doesn't know who's threatening her, she's under pressure as she's faking Kinzo being alive and hiding the fact she caused a person's death, she's filled with guilt for what she did, she perceived many of the relatives as enemies, she's way too prideful, she might think no one would believe her story, she might really be thinking acting like that she could save Krauss).

Actually, if I've to believe Yasu really tried to implement this plan in Prime I think it's more likely when she tried she never went far as the adults ganged up against her. However the temporally unnerving situation of being threatened, possibly by a gun, and maybe Yasu revealing stuffs that upset them (Kinzo's dead, Rudolf replaced Asumu's child with Battler, Rosa beats Maria, Eva understand nothing of George...), caused the adults to blow up and possibly one of them to die. This increased the stress level and possibly generated a 'Rokkenjima syndrome' in miniature in which everyone feared the other.

Still, it's hard to believe they would go that crazy enough to kill so many people... unless only 2 people were killed in an argument, Hideyoshi and George and Eva decided to kill everyone else with the bomb in retaliation because she couldn't stand it.

Well not everyone did have to be killed before the bomb went off. Any number from 0 - all of them could have been all alive until that point. Think for example, if Eva locked everyone in the VIP room while she went to go explore the tunnels, and left her husband in the guesthouse with the kids. Everyone dies, Eva is alive but feels guilty as heck.

I was also just reread Tanabata, and apart from Bern's needlessly cruel "if you smile at Eva, you mother will never come back" truth (I had previously thought she stated it in red but whatever), it also seemed to me like she was saying "If you are only ever sad and never become happy again, after a long time you'll kill yourself and be reunited with your family"

The problem is that the characters in umineko unarguably posses the necessary level of intelligence to see the problems of illegal gold. In this way the entire "motive for killing because gold" becomes bit sketchy even though I strongly believe ryu meant it as possible motive for the killer.

I see that element as well and I think Ryukishi was mostly trying to make the point that even the most intelligent, moral people at the same time possess a horrible and lust driven side.

The gold is only the central element in this. You could also make a good argument that Kyrie would never actually kill Asumu because it would be stupid. She was obviously the only one to gain from it and she had left the Sumadera clan far enough behind that they would likely not back her if she is accused of a murder that only benefits her. Still the story drives it forward that this element of being beaten by Asumu drove her so out of her mind that she was clearly to a certain degree insane. She wasn't a drooling madwoman incapable of rational thinking, but this part about her was very much mad.
The same for Natsuhi when impulsively shoving the servant through the railing or Rosa when she beats Maria.

I think this is mostly about showing that an extreme situation creates extreme reactions. I would agree that the adults are often drawn to reasonable to just go for the gold alone.

On the other hand we often forget that it was an element in the story that "they did not find any conclusive evidence that would have incriminated Eva (or anybody else for that matter". This could lead us to think that it was maybe even possible to expect that no evidence would be found, at least in the world of Umineko.
Sure we can question whether that would actually be a reasonable thing to assume in our reality, but this is how it is established in the story and to a certain degree we have to work with this.

Yet on the other hand there are plenty of cases in the real world that make you wonder why they remain unsolved and you could make an endless amount of theories about.
Take the Keddie Murders

I see that element as well and I think Ryukishi was mostly trying to make the point that even the most intelligent, moral people at the same time possess a horrible and lust driven side.

The gold is only the central element in this. You could also make a good argument that Kyrie would never actually kill Asumu because it would be stupid. She was obviously the only one to gain from it and she had left the Sumadera clan far enough behind that they would likely not back her if she is accused of a murder that only benefits her. Still the story drives it forward that this element of being beaten by Asumu drove her so out of her mind that she was clearly to a certain degree insane. She wasn't a drooling madwoman incapable of rational thinking, but this part about her was very much mad.

The same for Natsuhi when impulsively shoving the servant through the railing or Rosa when she beats Maria.

Except... Kyrie took almost twelve years to stew over her jealousy (and knew and disliked Asumu for even longer than that) before she actually resolved to do anything. And Natsuhi's action against the servant/baby, if it actually ever happened and if it happened the way she believes it did, ultimately came at the string of an unbelievably long period of despair, distrust, and a seeming inability to do the one thing that she believed would win her some measure of acceptance from her new family. These things simmered for years. Rosa has no excuse for Maria, of course, but the way those two ultimately reacted to their situations makes me think neither of them is likely to act on the sort of impulse suggested by the ep7 TP.

Bear in mind Kyrie considered very carefully all rational outcomes of her actions. She thought about it for a very long time and was aware of what the probable consequences would be if she went through with it. She simply determined, after a very long time thinking it over, that she didn't care. While it's an immoral decision, it isn't an irrational one. She weighed the emotional benefit of murdering a person she blamed for her suffering (whether or not it was Asumu's fault) with the possibility that she'd get caught or punished, and decided "screw it, my emotional well-being matters more than my freedom or the opinions of others, I'mma shank a bitch."

If anything, I point to Kyrie's entire Asumu story as proof her portrayal in ep7 is impossible. Kyrie could make a decision to murder... but it would take her forever to agonize over it, she would have to think everything out very carefully, and she would need an extreme level of emotional investment in the outcome. In other words, Kyrie only operates through premeditation, even when her acts are driven by "irrational" desires. If she was the killer, I'd say she'd almost have to have come already prepared to do it.

It's glossed over, but:
1) Battler said "See you again" before leaving the 1980 conference, so was still on good terms with his family; at the very least, Rudolf hadn't married Kryie; Asumu might have still been alive.
2) Ange's age during the 1986 conference was given as 6 years old.

That is, it is quite possible Kyrie was already pregnant when Asumu died.

That is, it is quite possible Kyrie was already pregnant when Asumu died.

I would think that's a near certainty, as it's the only adequate explanation for Rudolf's haste and, provided 12-year-old Battler isn't a complete dunce, he can probably figure it out. That would make his decision seem a bit more understandable; it's not just "you remarried too fast" but "you married the woman you were cheating on my mom with as soon as my mom died." The fact that Rudolf probably had good reason to do it (for Ange's sake) would probably not comfort him until he got older and was more mature about it.

It does add a sense of immediacy to Kyrie's behavior, too. But all that does is make her seem less impulsive. She wasn't even ready to act until she was backed fully into a corner.

Even though Mom was so devoted to our family, and did the very best she could...?! And even so, Dad was also cheating with Kyrie-san. He even got her pregnant with Ange...! And then, along with her birth, he rushed to move them into his register. ......If that isn't a betrayal of Mom, then what is?! Who will clear up Mom's regrets?!!

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Originally Posted by EP7

Now that Mom's dead, you can do whatever you want! I'm right there with you, saying that you should live life as you please! But just when did Kyrie-san get pregnant?! Back when Mom was still alive, right?! Yeah, now I finally see! This is why you always make me want to vomit! Are you glad that Mom is finally dead now? You are, aren't you?! I'm sure it'd have been so hard on you, keeping your infidelity and even a kid secret while Mom was still alive!! But now that Mom conveniently kicked it, you get to marry Kyrie-san, and I get a new little brother or sister!!

It does add a sense of immediacy to Kyrie's behavior, too. But all that does is make her seem less impulsive. She wasn't even ready to act until she was backed fully into a corner.

It's funny how kyrie really divides opinions as a character. Some people see her as very good and nice girl while some argue that she is literally insane.

I agree. Kyrie is very calculative. She does not act on impulse anywhere on the story, I'd say the title of miss impulsive goes to rosa or eva. But kyrie is COLD. I mean seriously, she doesn't give a shit. We can argue whether she really is a psychopath or a calculating individual taken a step too far, but personally I can and totally see her as the murderer in prime. Because she is capable of pulling out a murder, if it crosses her interest.

Now we can again have the same discussion about if gold actually acts as plausible motive or are the characters retarded or did ryu even consider the possibility of killing for gold having this kind of discussion, but I'd dare to say if we have a way X of converting the money to gold, I can totally see kyrie going for it. Now I don't say way X actually exists, but we can apply that principle to pretty much anything: as far as kyrie sees motive X as something to try and achieve, she could kill everyone and everything on the island without emotion

I don't think Prime went down like Ep7's tea party. That being said, I find Kyrie's actions somewhat plausible in that one, given the circumstances.

One, the bomb is the metaphorical Ring of Gyges. No point in worrying about consequences when there will be no evidence anyways. Two, by the time her and Rudolf start to act, one person is dead and several others are armed and ill-tempered. Chances are, left to their own devices, they'll start to think the same thoughts her and Rudolf are thinking re: killing relatives and letting the bomb sort them out. Three, if they can't put their heads together and explain away Natsuhi's death, both gold and bank card will be sitting in a police evidence locker, of no help to their failing businesses.

So, from Kyrie's relatively logical point of view, if they're going to act like spoiled kids, wave guns at each other, and not work together on this, screw 'em, they gotta die. The servants and kids are just another liability at that point.

I think the main problem with accepting someone was the culprit for the Rokkenjima massacre is:
it's possible someone thought it was a good plan or was temporally driven to think it was a good idea for random reason X but random reason X is never explained.

We probably wouldn't think that Natsuhi pushing the servant off the cliff is plausible if we weren't told her mental state but just that Kinzo told her to adopt a baby. Without knowing how she was feeling back then the idea she would toss a servant and a baby off a cliff would seem insane. But when we're allowed to give a look into her mind and we realized how she felt when she did it we think that yes, it's plausible.

Same for Kirye with the addition that nowhere is said that Kirye plans to kill Asumu and then be caught by the police. If she had managed to murder Asumu secretly enough not only she would have gotten free of her rival and cause of pain (and hate is a reason good enough to justify murder) but she might have managed to marry Rudolf. Also, although it isn't said, it seems she found the determination to kill her short before she died, therefore when she was already pregnant. It's likely this was an extra reason that pushed her to wish for Asumu's demise.

Back to the Rokkenjima massacre instead what's the general mood?
Surely the adults were stressed but as each of them carried his kids along (or let them be on the island) I doubt they went there planning to commit murder in front of them. Even if Ange was at home, Battler came along and, if Rudolf had planned to kill everyone he likely wouldn't have wanted to carry him.
Even assuming that things went on like in the Teaparty of Ep 7 and it started with an incident, logic lasts till Rosa gets killed.
When Kirye began shooting at everyone like that... well, it seemed irrational. It'll be maybe different if Rosa, after seeing Natsuhi and Krauss die, had a moment of insanity tied with the trauma of seeing Beatrice die and had threatened to kill everyone, maybe really shooting at someone and, out of fear, someone had shoot her back.
But then continuing to kill gets stupid when they could have pushed the blame of Krauss and Natsuhi's death on dead Rosa so logic breaks again.

I don't know, it's true Eva doesn't get arrested so maybe if someone else did the killing and then Eva killed that person in self defense the original murderer might have planned to do what Eva later did and not get arrested by the police but still... the whole thing seems weak.

So, from Kyrie's relatively logical point of view, if they're going to act like spoiled kids, wave guns at each other, and not work together on this, screw 'em, they gotta die. The servants and kids are just another liability at that point.

Are they a liability? I'm not convinced. If, say, Hideyoshi/Eva/Rudolf/Kyrie are still alive, they can be like "Jesus Christ, Rosa went apeshit and murdered Shannon, Krauss, and Natsuhi before we could stop her." At that point I think Jessica would probably believe them, and having the victims' daughter agree with it would help.

Or you could... cover it up and not murder anyone outside the secret tunnels nobody else knows about. You might have to get Genji involved or something, but there's no particularly good reason to kill Gohda or Kumasawa or the children (as far as you know).

Heck, if Kyrie were thinking truly rationally she could just tell the remaining adults "Okay, we won't have a problem if we move everybody who died out of this area and somewhere on the main island nobody knows about. We'll dump them all in a room and make it look like one of them killed all the others, then 'discover' it. Nobody says a word to the police about the gold or bank card, because if we do we lose it. It'll be hard on the kids but they'll back up the story."

I mean, I like to think that certain canon animosities aside (such as Natsuhi vs. Eva) the adults like each other. They were on the cusp of working together in ep7 before shit went down, the absurd part is that things continued to escalate rather than somebody trying to get a handle on the situation before it went totally batshit. That Kyrie was the agent of this chaos instead of the one trying to work against it seems out of character for her. She can get access to the money and avoid killing anyone else with game theory and blackmail. "Not killing more people than necessary" seems like a perfectly valid motive under these circumstances for most people; why would you rationalize the need to kill more than is necessary?

Plus, you know... they have the bomb. Why go murder people? Nobody's going to find that room. If you want to murder people, just flip the switch and leave.

Thinking on it, in this particular moment, Kyries EP7 kinda makes sense in a very twisted way - it's an extreme logical (if probably fallacious) conclusion of ROsa's argument in EP2 - other people's behavior is a Devil's Proof, "I can only trust myself,", sorta thing.

Remember how she told Jessica that in a Plank of Carneadas situation, she would push the other survivor off without hesitation? Well, her only reason to kill people beyond those in the Gold Room is "they might use a wireless to summon the police in the morning", which stays true whether they keep the bodies where they are, make the bodies disappear, or set up a situation that makes it look like they killed each other. You might also say, and I guess she runs on this train of thought in EP7, that despite the storm, who's to say the police couldn't SOMEHOW get to Rokkenjima, anyway?

It's one of those situations where mutual cooperation leads to the obviously superior outcome, but opens the individual to the worst possible outcome, which in this case would be betrayal by Evayoshi, Rosa, or maybe, uh, Yashkanontrice. I'd also add that from Kyrie's perspective, Rudolf could also potentilally betray her, but whatevs. Thinking this way, literally the only thing stopping her from shooting people immediately are, as she pointed out later, an insufficient number of bullets. Not saying these are GOOD conclusions to make, but hey, the Idiot Ball practically an Ushiromiya family heirloom so everybody deserves a turn at least once within their defined character traits, right? Hell, should've gone full monty and have Kyrie confess to Eva that she would've killed Rudolf, too, had Eva not done it alreaddyyy.

Forreals, tho, the only thing that makes me really think Kyrie MIGHT be the killer in Prime is the image from the game data of her holding a rifle from Eva's diary. I saw that and was just like "Aw, really though? COME ON."

As for the adults liking each other, well. Kyrie and Hideyoshi seem to be on pleasant enough terms with everybody, but none of the siblings seem to care for each others company at all - I remember being surprised at how infrequently they seemed to involve themselves with each other.

Spoiler for unrelated, really:

...side note, I'm really hankering for an Extra TIP set in 1977 that's just an exchange between Asumu and Rosa's man about coming to the island, and the pressures of being a parent, and etc etc Battler would've been 9 years old, too, man, could be drawing dramatic parrallels and stuff, it'd be great.

And Rosa's boyfriend was probably around her own age, as in, a lot younger than the other men of the family, so like, how did he feel about that? Did Eva look down on Asumu for the way she presented herself for Rudolf's sake? What the hell did Kinzo want to name Maria, anyway?

Eva : You killed?! You killed everyone?!! Even Maria-chan..?!Kyrie : There was no need to let them live until morning. When morning came, there would be an uproar, and that could prove to be a pain. They might have used a wireless to contact someone off the island and gotten help. .....So, this was clearly the move to take. If you turn the chessboard around and look at it that way, right.....?

Couldn't say if she meant a phone, or a radio - those things don't get checked until after the First Twilight in the earlier gameboards, and who knows if she tested the external land line, or radios before going on her spree. For what it's worth, though, Japan's first commercial mobile phone service was offered in 1985, and the Ushiromiya ARE supposed to be super buku rich and all.

At that point I think Jessica would probably believe them, and having the victims' daughter agree with it would help.

Going by the way Jessica is depicted there is no way of knowing whether she wouldn't distrust them and go apeshit, especially considering that it is just the remaining people's WORD that it was Rosa. That would completely screw everything up for them in case they discovered that Shannon had somebody working with her (which she did in the case of Genji and Kumasawa).

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Or you could... cover it up and not murder anyone outside the secret tunnels nobody else knows about. You might have to get Genji involved or something, but there's no particularly good reason to kill Gohda or Kumasawa or the children (as far as you know).

The problem here would be, though they can't know it for sure, Genji and Kumasawa are very likely to betray them to a certain degree. Also they could have reason to believe that the other servants also know about the secret tunnels and could blow their cover at any given point. During the Episodes (but especially 1 and 2) all the adults are shown to be very careful around the servants and accuse them of working against the family members regularly.
George is pretty much secretly known to have something with Shannon, so he could also be a liability in terms of her having filled him in at any given point.

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Heck, if Kyrie were thinking truly rationally she could just tell the remaining adults "Okay, we won't have a problem if we move everybody who died out of this area and somewhere on the main island nobody knows about. We'll dump them all in a room and make it look like one of them killed all the others, then 'discover' it. Nobody says a word to the police about the gold or bank card, because if we do we lose it. It'll be hard on the kids but they'll back up the story."

Would that work?
How would they answer questions like "Who killed the last person?" If there is a murderer moving around people would like to find him. It would also highly open up the possibility of the murderer being among the surviving family members.
How would they know that the other children would back it up? Jessica would have lost her parents, Maria her mother and George his lover. They are all possible liabilities, Maria even more because she would continue to fuss about Beatrice.
They are without alibi during that time and thus clearly a suspect.

On using the bomb without anybody knowing. It's like (I think) Eva implied in Episode 7, that they do not know whether anything told about the bomb is actually true. It could be much larger in terms of range than expected or much smaller, it could go off earlier or later than they were told, they don't even know which position switches it on and which switches it off with any certainty.
That is the big problem with the bomb, it has to be used by somebody who actually believed without a doubt that it would work and that is how we run into a big problem. It creates both a problem for murdering people and not murdering people.

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I mean, I like to think that certain canon animosities aside (such as Natsuhi vs. Eva) the adults like each other.

Concerning this I have to agree with Kealym, if not go further, I don't see them liking each other at all. They were aware of keeping up a certain amount of facade to function in each others presence, but I think it was clearly palpable that these people hated each others guts.
Krauss constantly feels belittled by his younger siblings for obvious faults that he still can't admit to. Eva hates her male siblings for being treated with more respect in terms of social responsibilities and treated Rosa bad because it was the only way to vent. Rudolph just doesn't care because he's the second son and basically out of the race, so he only cares about getting some part of the cake and getting out of there. Rosa was constantly bullied by her siblings (the EP8 manga implies they treated her like she's treating Maria down to ripping apart her favorite toy) and basically the punching bag of the family.
Natsuhi is hated by Eva and is constantly belittled for not living up to her purpose of the oldest sons wife. Hideyoshi is almost the one who is on best terms, but it is also implied that he is using this "good guy" image to get his way. Kyrie is taking herself back and silently observes.

I really never got the feeling that they liked each other at all. They simply went along because they were "the Ushiromiya family".

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Originally Posted by Kealym

Thinking on it, in this particular moment, Kyries EP7 kinda makes sense in a very twisted way - it's an extreme logical (if probably fallacious) conclusion of Rosa's argument in EP2 - other people's behavior is a Devil's Proof, "I can only trust myself,", sorta thing.

I can only trust myself and those who are dead, because they can't act. was not only used by Rosa. It was also used as a logical example by Jessica when accusing Eva in EP3, by Natsuhi in EP1 and especially by Erika during EP6 when she just re-kills the victims.
I think it's generally important to not think what people would act like if they were real people (because characters in a story are not) but what we know about how characters are characterized during the story and how certain elements would fit into a theme.

Would that work?
How would they answer questions like "Who killed the last person?" If there is a murderer moving around people would like to find him. It would also highly open up the possibility of the murderer being among the surviving family members.
How would they know that the other children would back it up? Jessica would have lost her parents, Maria her mother and George his lover. They are all possible liabilities, Maria even more because she would continue to fuss about Beatrice.
They are without alibi during that time and thus clearly a suspect.

It is significantly more likely to work than slaughtering everybody, which you'll note doesn't even work when Kyrie tries it in the ep7 TP. Eva kills her. Minimize the damage, find a scapegoat. Just because other people might have knowledge doesn't mean they can prove anything. Of all the people who might then still be alive, only Genji really seems like the sort of "maybe should be silenced immediately" type. And you could blackmail him, or even frame him. "Genji-san called the others away from the conference, so we waited for a while. When he returned, they weren't with him!" Hell, you could frame a number of people if you tried hard enough.

The police are coming either way once somebody goes missing. The question is what they will find. Trying to mitigate the damage and blaming someone who is dead (or alive, if you can make it good) at least gives you the opportunity to shuttle things out of the secret area and let the survivors not in the know establish that the family conference seemed to be going about as normal. Maybe you won't be able to prevent the gold from being found, but getting off the hook for murder seems a lot more important as a priority.

Killing everyone only works if you intend to use the bomb to cover the whole thing up, but as you noted...

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On using the bomb without anybody knowing. It's like (I think) Eva implied in Episode 7, that they do not know whether anything told about the bomb is actually true. It could be much larger in terms of range than expected or much smaller, it could go off earlier or later than they were told, they don't even know which position switches it on and which switches it off with any certainty.
That is the big problem with the bomb, it has to be used by somebody who actually believed without a doubt that it would work and that is how we run into a big problem. It creates both a problem for murdering people and not murdering people.

However, attempting to use the bomb alone to murder actually works in the favor of the person trying to use it. Worst case scenario is it doesn't work, in which case you personally have not killed anyone. Best case is that it does work; the only significant risk is of it working too well, which seems far less likely than it not working at all.

For Yasu this actually wouldn't be a big deal, even though she can't know it will work either; she's a risk-taker, so she'd probably be okay with the prospect of the activation mechanism failing. It would probably not be sufficient for Kyrie, and in the worst case scenario if she goes around killing people the bomb won't work and she'll have to answer for all of it. Given that she wasn't trying very hard to cover up what she was doing, she's only making her worst case worse without really making her best case any better.

And concluding that everyone is a liability is largely absurd. Survivors outside your immediate family deflect suspicion and confuse things. If only Kyrie/Rudolf/Battler survive, you know exactly who the police will look at (and Eva probably only got away with not being charged because she had the benefit of the bomb). Should the bomb not work, congratulations, you're all going to jail and you'll lose the gold. If the bomb does work... you might still lose the gold and go to jail, depending on whether the gold also blows up.

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Concerning this I have to agree with Kealym, if not go further, I don't see them liking each other at all. They were aware of keeping up a certain amount of facade to function in each others presence, but I think it was clearly palpable that these people hated each others guts.

They're under a lot of pressure. It's clear that many of them have a respect for each other and there are examples like the ep7 TP (before all the murders) or Battler's game in ep8 of them working together and supporting each other. It's also worth nothing that the other adults are so hard on Krauss because he's embezzling and covering up his father's death. Those accusations are true, and if you don't understand Krauss's self-loathing and his rationale for his actions he appears to be a greed-fueled monster. How much of Eva's sniping at Natsuhi is genuine hatred and how much of it is trying to make her spill the beans about a horrific crime she's probably complicit in?

When you throw a desperate need for money in the mix and boil people down to their component traits for a mystery story, you see them at their absolute worst. But there are plenty of glimmers of them at their best, especially when they fight back in fantasy scenes.

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I think it's generally important to not think what people would act like if they were real people (because characters in a story are not) but what we know about how characters are characterized during the story and how certain elements would fit into a theme.

The thing is, we can't have it both ways. The themes of the story are about stories themselves, and contrasting stories with truth. Yasu and Tohya's stories are perfectly fine as they are; flimsier motives and easier accession to crimes are fine in a mystery story as something we are more willing to accept from characterization. If, however, we start believing in a "real world" contained within the story - and Ryukishi clearly intends to raise that issue, what with the whole "no red in the real world" thing and whatnot - then he's intending to contrast the characterization and thought processes of a story with the thought process of a real (potential) crime.

As a result, ep7's Tea Party only really makes sense to me as the answer to a world that operates along the rules of a mystery story (and not a very good one, since it's just a massacre). Yet that's a fundamental contradiction; you can't give a "what really happened" explanation that assumes people behave like fictional characters. I'm aware they are fictional characters either way, but if there's some Prime that "really exists" in the world beyond then we have to at least pretend there existed "real" versions of the characters who would thus behave somewhat realistically.

Thus, while one might believe things like "Yasu could be a mass murderer" or "Krauss and Natsuhi would readily agree to help a killer to save themselves, no matter how vague the killer's promises" in a mystery story, they don't really work in a "realistic" crime drama. I suppose where people go from here is "but Kyrie is a plausible culprit in both instances," which is at least potentially true; however, her behavior in such an instance must match more closely to her behavior with respect to Asumu then her behavior in the ep7 Tea Party or Bern's game in ep8. She would premeditate and carefully rationalize, not go flying off the handle to get money she can't verify even exists or is accessible, murder people who could actually help her or take the blame for her actions, and do so in a manner which paints a big giant I AM A TOTAL PSYCHOPATH sign all over her body in Jessica's blood.

The key piece of truth from the 7th novel tea party is that there were 2 culprits.

Due to the context of the culprit identity in the 7th and 8th novels, their identity is most likely a cruel (yet perfectly in character) act of trolling by Bernkastel. The identities stink of "Rule Z" style red herring.

Eva has a body count in "Prime". This is foreshadowed by the 3rd and 7th novel.

Eva is NOT a culprit in the 3rd novel due to her motive. The 7th novel indicates that her motive in the 3rd novel and Prime was most likely a vigilante act trying to hunt down and stop the culprits.

Eva killed the wrong targets in the 3rd novel, but killed the correct targets in the 7th novel and Prime.

The most likely culprits in Prime IMO are George and Rosa.

The explanation for this part is a bit long winded. The gold most likely had nothing to do with the murders. The 4th and 6th novels raise some major red flags regarding George (the fact that he's perfectly willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of his relationship with Shannon) which give us an obvious motive. That and he's always acted like a creeper and suspicious to boot. Then there's the "triangulation cover up theory" someone mentioned regarding which character would it make sense for Battler, Beato, and Eva to cover up. George makes sense under this context. George being manipulative doesn't help his case either.

Rosa on the other hand is more difficult to place a motive on. If I were a gambling man, I would place my bets on her simply being insane. Rosa is arguably one of the most mentally unhinged individuals on the island. There's plenty of hints throughout the novels that she's severely bi-polar at best. Her heavily abused past combined with the incident involving Beatrice shown in the 3rd novel give me reason to suspect that all the circumstances for Rosa having PTSD are in place. The crap in Rosa's life combined with mental instability is simply a ticking time bomb scenario, and it may have detonated that day. The 7th novel also indicated an irrational outburst scenario, which fits with the theory of one of the culprits being unstable, not actually pre-meditating the murders.

Which brings me to the journal and other things.

Eva's hiding the contents of the journal from the world is related to the identity of the culprit. Hiding it from Ange has more to do with Battler's fate. Eva (wrongly) believes that Battler died there.

Due to the stupid way she did things, whatever good intentions Eva may of had regarding Ange completely back-fired on her.

The reason Beato showed the "Last Stand" scenario in the 2nd novel may have been as a warning/hint to Battler. This scene firmly places Rosa as being "competent" with fire arms, but not to the level of Rudolph and Kyrie. Also,

Spoiler for 8th novel spoilers IIRC:

The usage of a fountain pen is a rather psychotic way to go about things don't you think?